MANDEVILLE, Manchester — President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce Kenisha Dwyer-Powell and her predecessor Garfield Green have added their voices to those urging entrepreneurs to find new ways of operating in order for businesses to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dwyer-Powell told the Jamaica Observer by telephone last Friday that even after the pandemic has come and gone, significant adjustments to doing business will have to be sustained.

Online shopping and Internet banking are the ideal ways to go now, based on what is happening with COVID-19 and the guidelines, but not many persons are receptive to that, so you have to do a market research and SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats] analysis just focusing on your clients,” said Dwyer-Powell.

“Business is down, and no one is getting 100 per cent support in any area, so some businesses have locked down because there is just no way for them to operate, so that is what we are facing on one end… hotels such as Golf View that closed down two months now and is using the opportunity to renovate, but not a lot of businesses are able to do that.

“Other businesses would have cut staff, or they are on a week-on, week-off system, so everybody is feeling it… Restaurants, too, even though people are probably buying more food, because if you pass KFC or Burger King [there are long lines], so smaller restaurants would have either laid off [staff] or cut down on their services,” Dwyer-Powell added.